Google is in an intense race with Facebook and other companies to provide broadband coverage to the entire world. The prize is billions of customers in Africa, South America and other remote areas that don’t have coverage presently. If done properly. the companies could evade the type of censorship imposed by China and other authoritarian governments.

Google[x] is casting a wide net for technologies. There’s Project Loon, which would deliver Internet services via high altitude balloons. Last month, Google purchase Titan Aerospace, a start-up company that produces high-altitude, solar-powered drones capable of delivering high-quality communications services. Facebook had been eying an acquisition of the same company.

Then there’s Google’s rumored satellite project. Word has it that the company is looking to launch approximately 1,200 small satellites into low Earth orbit.

That’s where Virgin Galactic comes in. The company has developed a family of Newton engines for its LauncherOne rocket, which will deliver small satellites into orbit after being dropped from the WhiteKnightTwo carrier aircraft.

Having 1,200 Google satellites to launch would ensure business for many years to come.

Virgin Galactic is a really interesting company to watch because it’s SpaceShipTwo, offering rides into suborbital space for about $200,000, was supposed to be ready five or six years ago. There’s been some difficult in developing the Virgin spacecraft’s engines, however, and there’s some question as to when the company will be ready to make good on its flights.

This delay, and extra developmental costs, could very well be causing a cash crunch at the company.

The question is: When will SpaceShipTwo be ready to fly? (Virgin Galactic)

If the company does begin flying its passenger list includes a number of celebrities, including Katy Perry, Justin Bieber and Ashton Kutcher. Like it or not (I don’t) ours is a celebrity-centric culture, and the blasting of these people into space will bring lots of attention and interest to the burgeoning commercial space market.